Why Emory sends its MBAs to a U.S. Army base for training

(Poets&Quants) — It’s not unusual for newbie MBAs at a business school to be tossed into a bootcamp for a day of team-building exercises. But Emory University’s Goizueta Business School has a twist on that old routine.

Emory’s MBA students literally head for the barracks—the U.S. Army barracks. The day-long outing is part of the one-year MBA “Leader’s Reaction” course, where students spend a day working together to conquer military-style obstacles. Although it’s not the first school to utilize military activities for learning purposes, Goizueta is one of the few that makes it part of a required course.

The location: The historic Fort Benning military base, about 90 minutes south of Emory in Columbus, Georgia, where the U.S. Army helps to prepare combat-ready troops.

The mission: gain and apply leadership skills via nine military obstacles, some of the very same grueling hurdles used to train members of the United States Army.

Addressing some 50 MBA students lined up like new recruits in basic training, Army Lieutenant General Ken Keen told them that the day’s exercises would not only test their physical strength but, more importantly, their mental toughness as well.

“There’s a good chance you’ll get wet today.” quipped Keen, humorously alluding to the makeshift moats that they were destined to plummet into at least once. “If not, we can accommodate that for you.”

Keen’s gentle joshing belies his record of commanding elite military units, including those in Special Forces, and leading soldiers on missions in Pakistan, Central America, South America, and Haiti. Keen, who joined the business school in 2013 as Goizueta’s associate dean of leadership development, spent 38 years in the U.S. Army.

His personal mission at Goizueta has been to prepare students for leadership at all levels through curricular and experiential learning. As a long-time Army commander, he was influential in getting Fort Benning to open its gates to Emory’s business school.

At Fort Benning, students divided themselves into teams according to the study groups they share in the classroom. And then they were off.

In nine groupings of about five to eight students each, the teams rotated between nine “lanes” which were separated by cinder block walls so the other teams couldn’t see what lay ahead in the next rotation. At each lane, a different student served as the team leader, receiving mission instructions from an Army facilitator. Once those instructions were given, it was up to the team leader to communicate the task to the rest of the group and lead them to complete the mission in 30 minutes or less.

Simple enough.

Well, not exactly. Each mission contained “touch red your dead” obstacles and imaginary land mines that stood between the students and their goals. The students were also given very limited, ambiguous materials to use as resources. What’s more, each challenge required significant physical strength, adding another level of confusion when trying to determine how a team could collectively finish the mission. As if adding insult to injury, once the instructions were given, the military officers who served as the day’s facilitators quietly faded into the background. Any requests for help—outside of repeating the original instructions—were blatantly ignored.

So, how does all of this translate to the business world? “I’m focused on our students’ re-entry into the workplace,” says Emory leadership professor Peter Topping. “When they leave Goizueta a year from now, most of them will return to the workforce as managers or they’ll be on the management track. Therefore, it’s important for them to be able to foster team work and to deal with ambiguity.” Topping also pointed out that the day’s exercises were ultimately about self awareness. “To lead others, you start by leading yourself better.”

Wondering how well Emory’s MBAs performed when they were brought on base and challenged military-style? Like many MBAs, they exhibited creativity and perseverance. Many failed to plan effectively before tackling an obstacle. Some spent too little time assessing what was before them. Others spent too much time looking at the obstacle, leading to the kind of analysis paralysis that is pervasive at big companies.

Ann Borden—Goizueta Business School

“MBAs are trained to ‘go’ first,” said Full-Time MBA Program Dean Brian Mitchell. “This course teaches them to plan first.”

After a long day under a hot Georgia sun, the MBAs (who, by the way, just started their program two months ago) were more energized than when the day first began. Sure, hardly any of the obstacles were defeated, but the students undeniably left Fort Benning with new perspectives.

Reuben Weislogel, who worked in investment management before enrolling at Goizueta, said he learned more about his personal leadership style. Having the opportunity to lead a mission and to see how others led, “I learned that my leadership style is to set up the situation, lay out the task and tools, ask for input, and then execute.”

Nicole Bullock, who had worked as a human resources specialist for International Paper, enjoyed seeing her fellow classmates take on leadership roles and said she saw the importance of quickly adjusting one’s leadership style based on the task at hand.

That’s music to Keen’s military ears. “We can create a general template, but effective leadership development requires a level of self-awareness and commitment,” he says. “Our goal is to prepare students for leadership at all levels. Leadership doesn’t come through osmosis. Students must get out there and put their skills and abilities into action.”

New Emory dean to women: “There is no one way to do your life!”

FORTUNE — Erika Hayes James never thought she would end up with a career in academia. After finishing her doctoral dissertation at the University Of Michigan in 1995, the Bermuda-native pursued job offers in the corporate and consulting world. Yet a well-trusted advisor asked that she tried working as a professor for just one year. James decided to give it a go.

Twenty years later, James finds herself making history as the first African-American woman to lead an elite American business school. Calling herself the “accidental academic,” James will become dean of Emory’s Goizueta Business School on July 15th. In an exclusive interview with Fortune, James discusses her plans for her new role as well as the role she sees herself playing to correct the diversity imbalance plaguing business education.

Edited excerpts:

How did you react when you found out you got the job as dean of Emory?

The reaction was one of pure joy for me and for the opportunity this creates for Goizueta. There is such a strong alignment with my vision and the school’s visions and needs. The overarching values of the school are focused on principle leadership, integrity and ethics and excellence in all dimensions. Excellence is what it’s trying to create for the students at the school and excellence in the faculty and that’s something that I’ve tried to make a cornerstone of my own career. It seemed like a natural fit.

Has the historical significance of your appointment as dean to a top business school impacted you at all?

Going through the process, it really had not. But after seeing the press and how people are reacting to my appointment as a woman an an African-American leading a top business school, it has. When I see it in print, the reality of what that really means hits me. It is not something I spent a lot of time contemplating, but I see why it is so significant. I want to make sure to live up to the expectations I have for myself and the expectations that everyone who cares about business education have for me for this role.

What are your thoughts on gender imbalance in American business schools?

I have been a faculty member or a student in a number of business schools throughout the years. In a number of those, there have been a pretty sizable imbalance between women and men at the student level and women and men at the faculty level. It is an environment that I am familiar with, but we have a real opportunity to change. Having more women exposed to business and seeing business education as a viable career opportunity will certainly be a key driver that I have in this role. It will be part of my responsibility as a woman leading an elite business school.

What was your reaction to last year’s New York Times’coverage of Harvard Business School?

The fact that there was media attention is not surprising. It is a salacious topic that came on the heels of Sheryl Sandberg’s book and the topic of women and business is timely. I am not surprised that that article received so much attention. I was on the faculty as a visiting professor at Harvard and so I have some insight into that particular school. I will say that the examples that were depicted were extreme examples. The underlying issue and challenge is not a Harvard only challenge, it is something that any business school or any other organization might be susceptible to when there is such an imbalance of numbers of men and women. The environment and the culture starts at the top and it is my expectation and goal to create an environment that is inclusive of everyone that steps in the door at Goizueta.

What about the lack of minority leadership at elite business schools?

I know a lot of the tension is given to the dynamics with women in business school, but I will say that I’m not sure it is unique to women. It is more anytime there is a dynamic where there is a sizable majority, dynamics play out, from a pure numbers standpoint between the majority and the minority. I think there is some overlap between [gender imbalance and racial imbalance].

How did your childhood and upbringing impact your career?

I was actually born outside the United States on the island of Bermuda and I was there for a few years with my parents before moving to the United States. I spend my early years in St. Louis and then my more formative years in Texas. Given that I moved around a lot and transitioned a lot it made me very adaptable and flexible and it exposed me to a lot of people and opportunities. My step-dad was a psychologist and so that’s how I learned about the field. In college, I found a discipline called organizational psychology that married my interest in psychology with the business environment context, which made sense to me. I pursued my PhD in that field at the University of Michigan.

What’s your take on the “having it all debate”?

My mantra is that there is no one way to do your life. You have got to make the calls and decisions that work for you. In my own situation, I am married and have two children and my husband and I have been commuting off and on for the better part of 20 years. We have made that work, we have two well-adjusted children and a happy family life. It is unconventional. He is an executive at [Exxon Mobil], which doesn’t have locations in the same places where there are great business schools. So we have had to find a way to make that situation work for us and I think we have done that well. The choices we made wouldn’t necessarily suite others, but for each person the key is finding what is important to you and building a life even it is perceived to be different. No one can live your life but you.

Emory hires first African-American woman to lead top business school

FORTUNE — A female, African-American Ph.D. will become Emory’s Goizueta Business School next dean — a first in school history and a first among top business school programs.

Erika Hayes James, a former senior associate dean for executive education at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, will assume her new role at Emory on July 15. James earned her Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and built a career by connecting her knowledge of organizational psychology with executive leadership. She also has served as a consultant to several Fortune 500 companies, according to the Emory announcement.

While three minority women are currently deans at American colleges of business, James will be the first to lead a full-time MBA program at a top-25 business school, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The full-time MBA program at Goizueta is ranked No. 1 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek for job placement. Four of the school’s degree programs rank in the top 25.

Claire Sterk, the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Emory, made it clear that James’ race and gender were not driving factors in the school’s hiring decision. Breaking a glass ceiling of sorts by bringing her into the top business school role is just a bonus, she said.

As James takes the helm at Goizueta, diversity among faculty at business schools far and wide remains lacking. In 2013, a mere 3.8% of full-time business school faculty identified as black in an AACB survey. Bernie Milano is a president at the PhD Project, a non-profit that helps minorities earn their doctorates and become business professors. When the organization began its work in 1994, there were fewer than 300 business school professors of color in the U.S., according to Milano. That number has grown to roughly 1,237, but Milano says there is still much more work to be done. “It is a sad state,” he adds.

James is also just one among a few women leading American business school programs.: 22% of American business schools have female deans, according to a report by the AACSB. Although female business school deans have slowly been increasing in number, a recent AACSB study indicates that this has not led to significantly more women getting MBAs. In 2013, female enrollment at MBA programs at schools with female deans was 38.6%, vs. 35.3% at business schools run by men.

John Fernandes, the president and CEO at AACSB, calls James’ assent to the dean role a “beacon of light” and a big day in history. Immediately, James will become “the shooting star” for minorities and women in business school, he added in an interview with Fortune.

Emory’s hiring decision comes soon after Harvard Business School — the No. 2 full-time MBA program in the U.S., according to BusinessWeek — made headlines for its reputedly unsupportive culture for women. In January, HBS Dean Nitin Nohria publicly apologized that the program has a history of treating its own female students and professors in an offensive manner. Nohria was reacting, in part, to an investigation conducted by The New York Times that revealed a tangible achievement gap between female and male members of the HBS community. The dean noted that a record 41% of Harvard’s entering class of MBAs were women, up from 35% 10 years ago and 25% in 1985.